Ukraine daily quarantine could extend until April, Stepanov says

The current daily quarantine in Ukraine, which
replaced the more flexible adaptive quarantine this week, will likely be in
place until April, Health Minister Maksym Stepanov said during his Nov. 12
morning briefing. The prior day, Stepanov estimated 28,514 beds are occupied
out of 52,000 and mirrored the comment by PM Denys Shmyhal that intense
measures are necessary to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. “If we do
nothing, the medical system won’t be able to accept any people already on Dec.
10-15. There won’t be spaces in hospitals, even in the corridors,” Shmyhal told
the weekly cabinet meeting. 

A third of the hospitals of the first wave of
treatment are filled to a critical level with COVID-19 patients, according to a
study by the Kyiv School of Economics published by the life.pravda.com.ua news
site. In all, 142 hospitals have a critical COVID-19 occupancy rate, 75 are
fully occupied, and 92 are severely overloaded with COVID-19 patients. Half of
hospitals have a relatively safe occupancy rate.

A new daily record of 11,787 infections of the
COVID-19 disease was set on Nov. 12, the Health Ministry reported this morning.
That’s compared to 11,057 on Nov. 11 and 10,611 on Nov. 10.

An estimated 172 people died from the disease on Nov.
12, compared to 198 on Nov. 11 and 191 on Nov. 10. An estimated 1,587 patients
were hospitalized, compared to 1,509 on Nov. 11 and 1,453 on Nov. 10.

Zenon Zawada: The current
daily quarantine, which places considerable restrictions on public transport
(limiting passengers to the number of seats), will serve as a significant drag
on economic activity if it’s extended until the spring. It will be even worse
if the weekend lockdown extends into the new year.